Stupid Feminists

So the topic this week in my Research Methodologies class is Feminist Epistemology's and standpoint epistemologies. Now I was as clueless as ever started to do my reading but pretty soon I remembered why I get so irritated at feminism. Now I have realised that the fact that i get irrationally hostile to the whole thing maybe be some musculine self-defense method but something about it just really bugs me. I keep thinking that an entire branch of anything being devoted to why 50% of the population is better than the other is not very fair. And thats the vibe I pick up from it, not 'we are women, we are different' which I fully agree with and think should be investigated but instead 'we are women, our way is better'. For instant the piece I am reading at the minute is talking about several theorist views on the Scientific Method and why is is so masculine-based. Now the scientific method is, in my opinion, as neutral as possible, it strives to have no values whatsoever and deal only with hypothesis, antithesis, stc. Now what these feminist theorists were saying that all this would be rendered obsolete once the........to be honest I am not sure about what she was saying but the general just was that women can have periods and abortions and that in the face of this the way we think about biology today should be changed. I can get ye the quote later. Or another was talking about how women have to deny being women in order to survive in a lab.

I have actually stopped readinto be honest. Now I have to be fair and say that the editor of the Chapter, a feminist herself did point out that a weakness in these theorists was that while they talked about how the need for for a change in the way we see science is necessary they could not give any concrete examples, which is in itself a pretty damning indictment for how they think of science.

Its not just these particular things that annoy me, its the idea that I feel that I cant be irritated by them because i am just a man and 'I would not understand'. Perhaps that is true but in that case dont expect me to want to or even try to.

Its odd how the memory works. I was in town with Dave the other day at and we were looking for a space in the car-park. Now perhaps it is just 1st world car parks, but the smell of the place immediately brought me back to New Zealand, Dunedin to be precise. The gym I used to go to there was through a car-park and up a flight of stairs. Now as myself and Dave were driving around looking for a place I suddenly began considering what I would do in the gym and what I would eat afterwards. As if that was not strange enough today I went to a barbecue that was held in grassy area and as it turned out I was bitten on the ankle by some bug and it swelled up. What was odd was that the incredibly uncomfortable and itchy sensation in my leg did not really annoy me that much but instead kept me thinking of my time in South America, when I always had a few bites somewhere, and usually on my hands or ankles. It was driving me crazy but every time I started scratching it I had a wave of nostalgia.

Site for the Day: Flight Patterns around the Globe

A Word-Cloud of my Blog

Joan might remember me talking about this web-application. Its a website you can go to and either put in a block of text or web-address and it will go through the whole thing, count the words and make this customisable cloud of the most common, with size depending on frequency. Click on it to get a higher resolution picture. Glavin

Link: http://wordle.net/create

Things I Want/Need

1. A new Computer: Preferably a Desktop, powerful enough for gaming. was thinking about a lap-top but you can get a more powerful desktop for cheaper and, being honest, I think a laptop wont be much better. I dont want internet access at work cuz its too much of a distraction.
   
2. A proper Mp3 player: Not an iPod or Sony, that limits it a bit but still. I have one on my phone and also a 1gb Zen but thats just annoying. Need good ear-phones as well, normal ones fall out of my ears.
   
3. A New Set of Clothes: Everything I own is either old or second hand. I have nothing thats anyway formal and all my shoes are well old and smelly. I am pretty used to wearing rags after the year away but I would not mind some new shit.
   
4. An Idea for my Thesis: Something interesting that I will enjoy working on. several people in the class have already gotten supervisors for theirs as they came to the course with a clear idea of what they wanted. I am clueless.
   
5. Gym membership: And the time and motivation to go. Would also like to be able to go to Capoeira more often and also was thinking of joining the OPC, if only for the rock-climbing, I want to do that again.
   
6. Enough Money to buy proper Food: Might sound odd coming from me, but I actually like more than bread and potatoes, some meat or eggs would be nice. I tried a few new things while I was away but forgetting about not having the money to buy them, I am very lazy when it comes to cooking, sometimes potatoes are too much hassle.
7. The Ability to Write well: I have been reading up on grammar and all that lark, going to be doing a lot of writing this year and want to get good grades. Having good grammar and writing style come automatically would be a help.
   
8. To go back to New Zealand: /sigh, nuff said
9. To be able to see properly: Since I wear my glasses almost every waking moment it is always a shock to me to see how blind I really am. Laser surgery is definately on the cards
10. A New Library: There are so many books that I want to get right now, and not just fantasy/sci-fi ones, there are a lot that I saw while travelling that I could not buy.
    

Interesting Link for the Day: The Absurdity of Airport Security

/edit (21/10/08): added some more

Bolivia is odd, very odd

So thought I would write a short one since I will be out of commission for the next few days I think. Left Santa Cruz on Thursday and had a very uncomfortable 16 hour bus journey where we travelled 4000m up to La Paz in the freezing cold, not a good nights sleep. Arrived in La Paz and staggered down to our hostel. Again the place is far better than its reputation says, have had no problems in the 5 days we were here. What I did have a problem with however is the altitude, I have had a headache since last Saturday and it is only now beginning to fade, I was also panting like a paedophile every two minutes and felt like I had a weight on my chest, used to wake up feeling nauseous. Was not that productive to an enjoyable trip but I still had a good old time. Yesterday we had possibly the most surreal experience so far in South America when we went to a Bolivian Wrestling match. It was standard enough affair, fat guys in spandex throwing each other around, there was always a good guy and bad guy and the referree was always in cahoots with one of them. Then as the night went on it got a bit weirdo when the fights started getting a bit more extreme, guys getting thrown not only out of the ring and into the crowd, one of them getting a concussion and others being thrown onto crates that never broke meaning he just bust himself up. Then the Angry Cholita’s arrived. A cholita is a bolivian woman dressed in the traditional shawl and cap and skirt, you see them everywhere overhere.What was different about these was thay were psychotic and beat seven types of shit out of everyone, then the midgets arrived…..

Mad old Kiwi's 4 d Win!!

Just arrived in Napier on the east coast. Staying in a pretty sweet backpackers, my bunk is about 10ft above the ground though, should be fun if i get drunk. SO spent the weekend in Palmerstown North, not really sure why as there is not really much there, just a regulr big town with a huge university. Hitched my way up here this morning, its around 200km i think. Was a bit worried at first because they were slow ot pick up but then i got a ride to the nearest town and then was only waiting before a car pulled over. I was a bit surprised to see that the driver was an old fella but it turned out he was going the whole way to Napier so it was all good. Was a bit worried that he was going ot be like the old fella in Family Guy but turned out he was just a crazy old 84 yr old. Was a third generation scot but still counld speak a bit of scots gaelic and gave me a tour around the cuntry. Was one of those experiences tha you would never get in the tour buss or anything. Took tonnes of detours around to see bits and pieces, saw his old farm, the slaughterhouse where he worked, where an articulated lorry went off the road and ploughed through 3 houses. Did not hurt that this part of the country is really sunny and stuff

Eventually got to Napier but we had to spy on some of his tenants in a house first as it turns out they were sub-letting and i had to take pictures of the cars and stuff that were parked around, then i got a tour of the entire city and the surrounds, a mad laugh. Here in Napier for a while now, will have a look into getting a fruit-picking job for a few weeks i think and laze around the beach for a bit. Should be a good laugh.

Two News Stories that i thought were pretty cool

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-10/st_scream

and then this one from the BreakingNews.ie site

Gardaí in Dublin are seeking the public's assistance in establishing the identity of a woman who presented herself at Store Street Station last Sunday morning.

The woman, who is apparently suffering a loss of memory, was not carrying any documentation.

Gardaí say she speaks with an American or Canadian accent and is fluent in French.

She was also carrying a chihuahua dog (what the hell????) and has three tattoos, two of an Arabic-style writing on her left upper arm and the back or her neck and a Celtic-type design on the back of one of her legs.

The woman is in her mid-30s, five foot, nine inches tall, of slim build, with brown, collar-length hair and hazel eyes.

So got talking to this random Irish guy from Westmeath this morning. He is around my age and turns out that he spent most of his childood summers down in Fanore, just down from our caravan. Small world ehh.

Of Belt-Tightening and French Maids

Back in Queenstown i do be. Met up with yet another bum from Ireland when i did. A fello called Rob that i used work with in ISI is over for a week so we are just having a few drinky-poos and what not, none of the expensive stuff. I think he might have gotten the wrong impression of the place though cuz the first pub we went into was strangely enough filled with attractive women dressed in French Maid outfits, believe it or not this is not the usual scenario in Queenstown bars. So we hung around there for a while as the girls were now on the tables and bar dancing around, which was nice, the bar staff were all taking pictures fro0m behind and below. Anyhow after a while the DJ cam on the speakers and announced how "hot it was getting, maybe we need some......firemen!!!" At which stage a ton of guys in firemen outfits ran in, at which stage we left.

So bar the occasional drinking not much going on, i am back in the Black Shep in a proper warm, clean room without condensation on the windows and dripping from the roof. Will be here for 2 weeks then have to move again. goingtop be pro-active this time and book a proper hostel a few weeks in advance. See i have also looked at my bank account and it is not doing that well. Anna's visit really took a lot out of it, typical women. So i have decided to tighten up the bootstraps and give myself a budget and try and stick to it. Cutting down on all my stupid expences, which unfortunately involve all my internet time. I am a member of the gym and library and have a ski pass so hopefully if i justy stick to those things i will not be tempted to spend that much else. I am not in dire straits by any means but just cant continue like i have been spending.

I joined a job agency in town and will wait for a call from them but i think that i will also start randomly sending my CV to a few of the hotels around the place and see tdo they have any wokr. I do not want a full time job though, cuz that would just make all the money i spent no snow boarding stuff a waste of money, 15-30 hours a week is what i am looking for.

On another random note however, i was walking down to the gym last night when i saw this guy practising Capoeira over by the lake front. I went over and asked him if he knew of any classes that go on around town and while he mentioned one or two he invited me to go training with him a few times a week. I told him i had only been doing it a year or two cuz he was pretty class and it turned out he had been doing it 20 years, but he said that that was no problem as it is just easier to train with somebody else and that he would be able to teach me some stuff as well. So hopefully i will start getting my 1 on 1 free capoeira lessons next week. Then after talking to him and walking 50 yards down the road i met another South American guy i know (they are common as dirt over here) and his friends, also from South America. I got talking to them and it turnes out they are looking for a house, gave them my number and we may go looking this weekend. Then while in the gym got talking to a guy about his tattoo and it turned out he was from Ennis, its a small world.

Thats one thing that weird over here. When you are travelling on your own you have to learn to be self-sufficient, or insular as one girl i was talking to about it said. If you are not with a group then you have to get used to spending a lot of time just on your own and learning to be happy with that. But you also have to learn to be more out-going and willing to talk to complete random strangers, to initiate conversation with people anywhere cuz otherwise you will never make any headway. Have to admit that was not very easy for me at the beginning but you get used to it.

I will be well insular this weekend though. Have pre-ordered the new Harry Potter book and will be picking it up on Saturday morning. Its being released at 11 o clock in the morning over here so i though, "super, i will get to read it before all ye bums back home" then i realised that with the time difference it would be just about midnihgt in Ireland ant thats when the big releases are at back home, grrr. Will probably spend the weekend reading that, its nearly 800 pages long so i should finish it in a day or so, a day if i dont sleep til late. Sounds like a plan.

i am like a vacuos, ephemeral chimera, you dont know me

So i am reading two books at the minute. One i had to buy and the other was in the hostel. The first one is called Quentins by Maeve Binchy. Its a total load of crap but similiar to crack it is hard to put down. When i read it i get filled with a warm fuzzy feeling that is as addictive as the high quality white stuff. I have only read one of her other books before, Scarlett Feather and it was the same. I love the way you get to empathise with the characters, all two dimensions of them and the same characters are used in each book so you get a secret thrill froom knowing their backstory form another of her wonderful novels. I feel so dirty.

The other novel i am reading is the Alphabet of Manlyness by I. M. Maddox. It is slightly different from Maeve Binchy in some ways. Tis well calss though. Just like his web-page The Best Page in the Universe. It can get a bit much sometimes though. ANyone who has ever seen his sight will know how OTT and haveing a book filled 120 pages of the same stuff is pretty over-whelming. I shall keep ye updated when i finish it

How quaint,

Your pirate name is:
Dirty Sam Vane
You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You tend to blend into the background occasionally, but that's okay, because it's much easier to sneak up on people and disembowel them that way. Arr!


hmmm, and i even picked the 'washes daily' option. God only knows what Liams really said

Serendipity....i think

Today i met a boy called Liam Murphy. Now the cool thing about Liam Murphy is not the dirty irish name but the fact that i already know him. You see Liam Murphy was in my Anthropology class in New Paltz. I have been over here two months now and i have completely categorised all the new people i met into the 'Maine Category'. Now when my family came to visit obviously they fell into the 'Ireland Category' but to see someone that i recognise that is not from those categories was a huge shock. New Paltz is 7 hours away or around 400 miles away and has millions of people in between so i was definately not expecting to see someone familiar. I had only spoken to him a few times in class but i got his room number down there andi might give him a call if i go down. Himself and the girlfriend were only up here for the night so that was that.

Apologies for the lack of posting recently, it has been a relatively uneventful week

With blade and breath they seek my doom

With one hand they offer counsel but with the other they seek to upsurp me!!! God, Lord of the rings is a class film. I’m just after watching the 1st Cd of the extended version of Return of the King and it was as good as ever. I was just saying that Peter Jackson is such a good director that he is able to leave entire battles out of shot, such as the failed retaliation against the orcs in Osgiliath and still keep you hooked, you could say ‘He picks his battles’!!!!! HAHAHA actually I did say that, susan thought it was funny too, well she chortled a bit…I think.

Anyway I digress. The poetic title is not just the influence of Tolkien speech but also what I thought when I discovered a nefarious plot being planned by the very people I thought I could trust. It’s a long story but stick with me; a few days ago when it was really hot Susan said she could bring me down to the beach for a swim or to the lake. I decided on the lake cuz it looked prettier and would probably be cleaner. The next day I was talking to the girls in work and they said I should have gone to the beach as it is really nice as well. It is pretty calm as it is in a big bay called Penobscot Bay which is slightly smaller than Galway Bay. They even said that we would all go next week perhaps.

So I’m thinking the same as you probably are, “What nice people, how lucky am I!”. SO today I was reading this book about a local seal called Andre. It turns out Andre is a bit of a celebrity like Fungie the dolphin back home. As I read on however I was filled with bone-numbing dread. You see Andre had a brother called Biscuit or something and he would also swim around the boats in the bay. But one day while he was following a boat he disappeared, and when the fisherman went to investigate he found Biscuit……….AND A GREAT FUCKING WHITE SHARK!!!!!! After a bit of research I found out that Penobscot Bay is a ‘casual feeding area’ for Great Whites and there is even an Island called White Shark Island in the bay. Now those of ye who know me know that I have a completely irrational fear of sharks and even feel very nervous, nay scared shitless swimming in a fresh-water man-made canal 60 miles from the coast or even sometimes in swimming pools so ye can imagine how I feel about going swimming in the ocean where there are Great White carnivorous ruthless freakishly fucking scary sharks within 15 miles!! It aint going to happen people. Of course no-one has ever been attacked by one but I would not want to be the first. I had foolishly told the wankers in work about my shark thing a while back and they thought it funny not to tell me cuz, rest assured, it was one of the first things I asked when I got here “Do you have man-eating sharks?”. Next thing they will tell me that they have Sasquach’s………On a completely different topic, me and Susan are going camping next week.

5 things i like

1) somewhere other than here
2)being at home
3)that really tired feeling you get after going to the gym and after a hard cycle home then having two rolls and milk
4) Dereenatra, nuff said
5) swimming in the canal where you are 40 foot down and looking up at the sun coming u through the water, then doing a 15th foot back flip to hang on a suspended bar before launching off that to jump to the surface......carrying Liams naked scooter ride.

How the Little People try to get me Down

Yet again the proles have been casting aspersions on my good name so i am forceds to yet again to crush their petty arguments and flimsy accusations into the proverbial dust of lies that they are.
After i was not selected for the Jury of crazy plane-chop-chop woman the judge informed us (the panel) that we were required to return the following day to be selected for another trial, the Jury were also asked to return at half ten asnd after a jury had been chosen for the other trial, theirs could get underway. While i endevoured to be at the courtroom for half ten the next day, i was unavoidably detained my roadworks and traffic congestion in the towns of Clarecastle and also on the way into Ennis town. i arrived at the court at twenty to ten and sat there for more than half an hour before the judge said the trial had been dropped and we were free to go for the day, i thought it unusual that there had been no roll-call and when i was talking to a fellow clonlarian he said tha ti had missed it, luckily it was all sorted out in the end. As for Friday, well i did spend a lot of time at the bottem of the canal but then, i did the same every other day of the week, fuckin fagggot

A Clarification of Issues

It has come to my attention that certain slanderous accusations are being circulated as to my whereabouts of last week. I feel that i must put the electronic pen to paper and refute these viperish insinuations

On Wednesday of last week i was called to serve my country and practise my constitutional responsibility to serve on a jury panel. After a long and arduous journey from this fair nations capital i arrived in Ennis Circit Court (give or take a few days)Here i was told that the case was that of mary kelly, a crazy woman who attacked an american army plane in shannon airport.The way the sytem works is that 20 people are called and if they can give no valid reason not to do it then the prosecution and defence have 7 vetoes each. In the end they went through around 35 people before they managed to get a jury. unfortunately i was not picked but the judge told me to come back the day after.....so i did

WHO AM I?????????!!!!!!!!

I'm a Philosopher/Scientist!



Which Enemy of the Christian Church Are You?

Take More of Robert & Tim's Quizzes
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is this me? perhaps, who am I?

I'm Olivia!




Which Robert & Tim Show Character Are You?

by bastard_king & evil_mr_tim



while not really me, cuz i am not a girl

grr so mad, i have spent the last ages, wracking my brain doing these IQ tests and finally when i finish one i get 'Page cannot be found' they are too intimidated by my brilliance is what it is

i am nice and refreshed after an enjoyable weekend breaking rocks with a sledgehammer, strangely therapeutic and then a nice snack of bread and water afterwards. My kind of weekend!
I met a friend of mine from school on the train up, he is in the Cadets and his job is a complete world away from mine. I then found myself sitting beside a fella from my home village on the bus into town. Ireland is really a small country.